Hello Earthlings! Welcome back to What If We Get It Right?

While you and I know that we already have most of the climate solutions we need — it’s more a matter of how quickly and justly we are going to implement them — most people do not know this. And you kinda can’t blame them because most of the news, plus movies and TV and social media, focus on climate problems.

This is a massive storytelling challenge. We have a narrative gap, to put it mildly.

And so for this special last episode of the season, I had the pleasure of sitting down with award-winning filmmaker and writer dream hampton in front of an audience at Bowdoin College in mid-November.

For her whole career, dream has been making art about power and justice, and more recently has been creating works about climate, which, of course, I’ve been thrilled about. Her credentials are deep, as both community organizer and artist. Recently, she was showrunner and executive producer on the Emmy-nominated documentary series Surviving R. Kelly, which earned her a Peabody Award. In 2019, TIME magazine named dream one of the most influential people in the world, and she’s certainly been influencing my thinking in the decade or so I’ve known her.

Here, we talk about how to embed climate solutions into popular culture, and the history of how activists (and bad actors) have utilized various storytelling, narrative-setting strategies. As dream put it in her opening remarks:

Stories don’t just reflect the world. They create it. They decide who the heroes are, what problems matter and what futures feel possible. So what story is shaping your worldview? What story could you help write? What future do you want for Maine and who stands beside you in that story? How will your generation turn anxiety into action and possibility into progress?

We screened dream’s beautiful film Freshwater. It’s a meditative, intimate, quietly devastating piece that uses the language of memory, water, and place to make climate change feel personal. dream narrates, talking us through flooded basements of homes in her home city of Detroit, Michigan.

We also played and discussed A Message from the Future with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which lays out a compelling vision for what the future could look like if the bold promise of a Green New Deal became reality — animated gorgeously by Molly Crabapple. It depicts a future that feels possible and tangible; an imperfect future, but one very much worth fighting for. Watch it below.

And as a bonus, watch dream’s explainer of the War on Drugs, narrated by Jay-Z and again illustrated Molly Crabapple — a powerful example of narrative-setting, and a precursor to the GND video that helped establish the form.

And that’s a wrap on What If We Get It Right? Season 3!

If you’re enjoying this podcast, please help others find us — follow, rate, and review the show. ✅ Send the link of your favorite episode to your favorite group chat, and discuss! 🗣️

Notes:

This podcast is ad-free thanks to the support of Future Being, a grant making and special project studio, which supports the healing of our planet and the safeguarding of biological and cultural diversity.

BIG thanks to Bowdoin College for bringing dream to campus and producing this event, with a special shoutout to Benje Douglas. This episode was produced and edited by Remoy Philip and me, Ayana, with help from associate producer Jenisha Shrestha.

If you’re new here, peruse the back catalog. A few dozen hours of sweet podcast conversations with incredible guests await you. ✨

Shoutout:

While the WIWGIR podcast goes on break for a few months, we recommend cuing up the latest season of How We Survive, a podcast from Marketplace that will give you new perspective on your holiday meals. Host Amy Scott investigates how the climate crisis is threatening our agricultural systems and how scientists are racing to develop alternatives that will shape the future of food.

Plus, check out their free climavore-friendly cookbook. It features recipes from Amy, “The Splendid Table” host Francis Lam, and Samin Nosrat, chef and author of “Salt Fat Acid Heat” and “Good Things.”

P.S. dream’s shirt! 🇯🇲 IYKYK

What if businesses got creative to unleash funding, political influence, and cultural clout to address our environmental challenges?

What if corporations were driven not by maximizing quarterly earnings and shareholder profits, but by being good citizens of planet Earth?

There are some companies truly trying to get it right. I happen to be on the board of one of them – the outdoor company Patagonia. I joined the board of directors in 2021, as Patagonia was going through a major transition that resulted in the world having one less billionaire, the founder Yvon Chouinard, and a plan to give away basically all the company’s profits to environmental causes in perpetuity.

I thought you might like a peak behind the curtain of all this, so I sat down with the CEO, Ryan Gellert, to dig into the values and practices that have shaped not just Patagonia, but set a high bar across sectors for everything from materials and manufacturing, to worker’s rights and activism, to philanthropy. Now, it’s not a perfect company, certainly, environmentally or otherwise, but it’s a model worth considering.

Links/resources for the topics we covered, are all in the newsletter: ayanaelizabeth.substack.com

About a third of our climate problem is caused by agriculture and land use. So, what are we gonna do about it?

One key solution is shifting to regenerative agriculture, aka growing food in ways that are actually good for soil and ecosystems and water and air.

Our guest this episode is Dave Herring, executive director of Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment. It’s is a farm-based education, research, and visitor center set amidst more than 600 acres of conserved open space on the coast of Maine’s Casco Bay.

Dave and I talked about helping farmers make the transition to regenerative practices, getting involved in environmental policy, running a farm camp so kids understand how their food is grown, and working to make our food system a part of our climate solutions.

CALL TO ACTION: Really think about (and get more curious about) where your food is coming from. And eat more local, more seasonal, more plant-based.

If you’re in a position to help others access nutritious food, please do. Our neighbors and food pantries and soup kitchens need our support. Find resources near you 💛: findhelp.org

And if you’re inspired by what you heard in this episode, and furious that the Trump administration cancelled their grant to do exceedingly important work, support Wolfe’s Neck Center! 👩🏽‍🌾: wolfesneck.org.

Podcast notes:

If you’re enjoying this podcast, please help others find us — follow, rate, and review the show. ✅ Text the link of your favorite episode to your favorite group chat, and discuss! 🗣️

This podcast is ad-free thanks to the support of Future Being, a grant making and special project studio, which supports the healing of our planet and the safeguarding of biological and cultural diversity.

This episode was produced and edited by Remoy Philip and me, Ayana, with help from associate producer Jenisha Shrestha.

If you’re new here, peruse the back catalog. A few dozen hours of sweet podcast conversations with incredible guests await you. ✨

Today’s episode is all about HEAT, that climate change bummer from which so many other impacts ripple out. The Earth is hotter now than at any other point in all of human history. From our homes and our jobs, to our policies and culture, how do we adapt? My guests for grappling with all this are Jainey Bavishi and Jeff Goodell.

Jainey served as deputy head of NOAA under President Biden, and as head of resiliency for NYC under Mayor de Blasio. Perhaps you remember her from Season 2: “The Future of Coastal Cities.”

Jeff is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet. He has also been a climate reporter at Rolling Stone for over two decades.

BONUS CONTENT: Head to the newsletter (ayanaelizabeth.substack.com) to watch the hilarious cold open by Brad Einstein with sassy Earth puppet.

Follow, rate, review! ✅ Text your favorite episode to your favorite group chat, and discuss!

CREDITS: This episode was recorded live at Pioneer Works during Climate Week NYC. This podcast is supported by Future Being, a grant making and special project studio, which supports the healing of our planet and the safeguarding of biological and cultural diversity.

Special thanks to Pioneer Works and Wellcome Foundation for hosting this live taping. This episode was produced and edited by Gabby Bulgarelli, and me, Ayana, with help from associate producer Jenisha Shrestha.

Last week, I received the TIME Earth Award at the TIME100 Next gala. I worked really hard on my acceptance speech because it was an opportunity to recruit those 100 culture-shaping rising stars to get more involved in climate solutions. We need them!

I’m sharing this speech with you in the hopes that hearing the way I speak about climate issues in rooms of power will encourage you to also speak up. Because the truth is that every one of us has a sphere of influence we should be activating.

For the transcript, video, and photos head to my newsletter: ayanaelizabeth.substack.com. And while you're there, I'm curious: What would you have said if you had that microphone? Let me know in the comments.

Thank you to Future Being for keeping this podcast ad-free, to Remoy Philip for producing this episode, and to assistant producer Jenisha Shrestha.

Okay, Earthlings 🌎, that’s it for now. We’ll be back next week with a piping hot new interview episode. Stay tuned…

For those of us trying to advance climate solutions (go team!), there’s always the question of how to be more impactful, how to bring more people along with us into this work. And often the answer is not fancier technology or more brilliant policy, it’s more compelling communication for recruiting and persuasion.

Today’s podcast guest, John Marshall, is an expert in marketing. He spent the first half of his career working with corporations who want to sell us stuff. And now, as founding executive director of the nonprofit Potential Energy, he’s using those same tools to sell climate solutions.

So, what messages are most effective? What words should we use or avoid? Who are the best messengers? What’s his advice for me about how to be a better one? And what’s love got to do with it?

I learned so much, including that we simply have to talk about climate MORE. So, Earthlings, let’s get into it!

John’s CALL TO ACTION 🗣️

Rally your crew, build the team: "Do things, invite people. You invite three people and they invite three people, and that’s how change actually happens. And that’s how we get an acceleration. So do talk about it with somebody. Invite somebody to do something together."

Simple, necessary, and something each of us can do more of. To put it in the words of Bill McKibben, sometimes the best thing an individual can do is to stop being such an individual.

Podcast notes:

If you’re enjoying this podcast, please help others find us — follow, rate, and review the show. ✅ Text the link of your favorite episode to your favorite group chat, and discuss!

This podcast is ad-free thanks to the support of Future Being, a grant making and special project studio, which supports the healing of our planet and the safeguarding of biological and cultural diversity.

This episode was produced and edited by Gabby Bulgarelli, and me, Ayana, with help from associate producer Jenisha Shrestha.

If you’re new here, peruse the back catalog. A few dozen hours of sweet podcast conversations with incredible guests await you. ✨

Almost exactly three years ago (Oct 14, 2022) a couple of climate activists hurled tomato soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s painting “Sunflowers.” It got a whole bunch of press. Do you remember this? Did you ever look into who did it and why?

Well, this week on the What If We Get It Right? podcast, we’re gonna get to the bottom of it. I’m sharing the first episode of the climate podcast Sabotage: “The Splat.” Season 1 of this fascinating investigative show, tells the story of the people behind the climate activism group Just Stop Oil. Co-hosted by Alessandra Ram and Samantha Oltman, the show asks: How radical is radical when it comes to climate activism right now? And it all starts with the splat heard round the world — that tomato soup splashing all over the painting’s glass and frame and the wood floor in London’s National Gallery.

I hope you enjoy this episode of Sabotage as much as I did. Subscribe! Their season 2 is dropping soon...

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I’ll be back with a new interview episode next week. In the meantime, my call to action for you: VOTE CLIMATE ✅

Election day in the U.S. is November 4th. For the love of all that is good, please vote. Check details for your polling place and what’s on your local ballot at iwillvote.com. There are so many important local positions and ballot initiatives. Do your research, share useful info with friends & neighbors. And be sure to research the climate platforms of all candidates. Duh. See Lead Locally’s endorsements here.

Then, hit the phones ☎️: Phone bank with Environmental Voter Project and Lead Locally. (And listen to Season 1, Episode #2: Vote Climate for my conversation with the founders of those organizations.)

Until we as Earth-lovers become a formidable voting block, politicians won’t prioritize climate policy. So GOTMFV!

This week I’m chatting with environmental lawyer Abigail Dillen, president of Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm whose tagline is “because the Earth needs a good lawyer.” Indeed, it does.

The stakes, in her words: “We could come out of this time with neither presidential authority nor congressional authority to create, and enforce strong environmental laws.”

Oof. But we are not quitters, right team? So, from from the Supreme Court, to suing the government, to Project Phoenix, to her spicy take on the whole abundance narrative, Earthlings 🌎, let’s dive in.

Abbie’s CALL TO ACTION 🗣️ Buckle up, this is an especially nerdy one: Read Supreme Court dissents in order to fire yourself up, starting with what Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had to say in Trump v. CASA, on universal injunctions and beyond.

Notes:

If you’re enjoying this podcast, help others find us — follow, rate, and review. ✅ Text the link of your favorite episode to your favorite group chat, and discuss!

This podcast is ad-free thanks to the support of Future Being, a grant making and special project studio, which supports the healing of our planet and the safeguarding of biological and cultural diversity.

This episode was produced and edited by Gabby Bulgarelli, and me, Ayana, with help from associate producer Jenisha Shrestha.

Food is a major driver of our environmental problems. It uses ~38% of Earth’s land, drives ~70% of our water use, and emits ~22-34% of our greenhouse gas pollution globally. I know it’s not popular to say it, but a lot of that impact is driven by beef and dairy.

On the one hand, agriculture is driving deforestation and warming the planet. And on the other hand, our changed climate is determining what foods we can continue to grow and where.

So, this week I’m sharing what turned out to be, notwithstanding those terrible stats I just rattled off, an utterly delightful conversation with food mega nerd Sam Kass.

Sam was Senior Policy Advisor for Nutrition in the White House during the Obama administration, and he was also White House chef. He is the founder of TROVE and a partner in Acre Venture Partners. In 2012, he helped create the American Chef Corps, which is dedicated to promoting diplomacy through culinary initiatives. And he has a new book that just came out on October 7 called The Last Supper: How to Overcome the Coming Food Crisis.

This conversation, recorded live during Climate Week in NYC at an event organized by PlanetFWD, is a sneak peak into what Sam covers in the book — from what our last supper might be missing (sorry to the coffee, chocolate and wine lovers), the enormously important role of culture, stories from his time in the White House (like the organic vegetable garden he created with FL Michelle Obama), and how what we eat and how we farm can be SOLUTIONS.

And I can’t miss the chance to say that it is my fervent belief that the climate movement needs more dinner parties! So when you’re done listening, make a plan to gather with good people over nourishing food and conspire about implementing climate solutions.

Notes:

If you’re enjoying the show, please help others find us — follow, rate, review, tell your crew! ✅

This podcast is ad-free thanks to the support of Future Being, a grant making and special project studio, which supports the healing of our planet and the safeguarding of biological and cultural diversity.

Special thanks to Julia Collins and the team at PlanetFWD for hosting this live taping. This episode was produced and edited by Gabby Bulgarelli, and me, Ayana, with help from associate producer Jenisha Shrestha.

Bon appetite, Earthlings 🌎 xo

"Every single day you live you make a difference in the world, and you get to choose the difference that you make." — Jane Goodall

Last week, when I heard that Jane Goodall had died, it knocked the wind out of me. It hit me as more than a loss; it felt like the end of an era. A naturalist, a deep thinker, an expert, and so elegant, Jane's animals, of nature, set the bar for how much we each could and should devote ourselves to preserving life on Earth.

Amid the outpourings on social media this comment struck me: “I want to live in a country where the flags are flown at half mast for Jane Goodall.” YES.

In 2021, I was a guest on Jane's podcast called The Hopecast. I couldn’t let myself just be interviewed by her — how absurd for me to be the one doing all the talking when with such a luminary! — so it was a conversation.

I’m so glad to get to share her voice with you; a reflection of her abundant soft power. She titled this episode “Hope is Courage and Taking Action Together.” (Note: I do not recommend debating the value of hope with Jane Goodall!)

Video clips from this episodes are in my newsletter: ayanaelizabeth.substack.com.

Credits: Thank you to the Jane Goodall Institute for producing this original conversation, Remoy Philip for producing the version for this podcast, and assistant producer Jenisha Shrestha.

CALL TO ACTION: Support the continuation of Jane’s work by encouraging a young person or educator to get involved with her Roots & Shoots organization. There are tons of resources for organizing and action on their website. Taking action to protect and restore nature is by far the best way to honor Jane’s incredibly legacy.